


This Silence Holds Too Many Words

by waroftheposes



Series: No Mistake Is Too Great [1]
Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Interrupted Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 13:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waroftheposes/pseuds/waroftheposes
Summary: Ander has been repeating the words to himself for the past day.Omar is getting married. Omar is getting married to someone who is not Ander. Omar’s getting married because he decided to get married. Because he asked his parents to find him a wife.Omar made this choice.And no matter how many times Ander repeats these statements in his head, they don't make sense.





	This Silence Holds Too Many Words

**Author's Note:**

> _Este silencio esconde demasiadas palabras_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
> Thank you to my beta who saves all my garbage first drafts with her amazing editing skills.

_Ander struggles as he unlocks the door to the apartment. He tries key after key and only stops when he realizes that he’s been using the same keys._

_Stepping away from the door, Ander takes the keychain into his hand and looks at the keys closely. The key to the apartment has a little “04” engraved into it. Ander fits it into the lock and walks into the apartment purposefully, allowing the door to slam behind him._

_Omar, who’d been lying on the couch, flinches at the sound, looking up from his phone and half-rising, before his eyes catch Ander and he lays back down.“Hi?”_

_Ander takes a seat on the couch next to him waiting until Omar has put away his phone before speaking._

_“When were you going to tell me?”_

_“Tell you what?”_

_Ander sighs. “About your mom.”_

_“Oh.” Omar rises again, this time to a sitting position. He shrugs._

_“Omar!”_

_“I don’t know!” Omar responds. “I didn’t think you needed to know.”_

_Ander furrows his brows. “You didn’t think that I needed to know that your mom might_ die _?”_

_“I mean we don’t know how bad it really is. But I don’t think it’s a might,” Omar says, body stiff. He is staring at a point on the floor, between his feet, and when he speaks again, his mouth barely moves. “I think that it’s a will,” he says, swallowing. He moves his head slightly, looking at Ander’s knees. “We all think that she will die.”_

_“Oh.” Ander places his arm around Omar’s shoulders. Before, when Guzman had told him about the illness, Ander’s confusion at the news coming from him and not Omar had overcome any feelings of sadness. Presented with Omar’s sorrow now, Ander cannot believe his own initial reaction. Omar’s head falls on his shoulder, and Ander attempts to set aside his own confused thoughts and focus on Omar._

_He feels Omar’s shaky breath._

_“I’m sorry,” Ander whispers, finally. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I could have… I don’t know, helped somehow.”_

_Omar shakes his head, his eyes clenched shut._

_“I didn’t want you to know,” he says after a moment._

_Ander pulls away gently. “Why?”_

_\---_

“This makes no sense,” Guzman says, his voice soft and low. Ander’s head is currently resting on his shoulder, and Guzman’s hand strokes Ander’s back as he speaks. Neither his voice nor his hand provide comfort. “Why would he do this? To make his parents happy? he hasn’t _cared_ about what your parents want in years.”

This last sentence is aimed at Nadia, who is sitting across from them.

Ander doesn’t move his head from Guzman’s shoulder, but he responds, voice muffled, “He never cared about what they wanted, he just wanted to get out.”

He feels Guzman’s hum of agreement more than he sees it. When he raises his head, he sees that Nadia is fidgeting.

“I don’t know,” she says, looking at her hands. She clenches and unclenches them as she speaks, her voice lowering. “He won’t talk to me.”

That’s the real problem, that Omar won’t talk to her. He won’t talk to Nadia unless he absolutely has to. He won’t talk to Ander at all, though that’s expected after the fight that they had two Saturdays ago. He most definitely never talked much to Guzman before, not about important things anyways, so there is no way he’d talk to Guzman now.

He’s cut himself off from the two people who are closest to him, and Ander doesn’t know how to get him back.

“I told him last night,” Nadia continues. “That he should come and get his stuff from your place if he really is serious about moving out, because I know that if he sees you he’ll talk to you,” she says nodding at Ander. “But he said he’ll just buy new stuff.”

Guzman laughs, one single sound, not amused. “He said what?”

“God.” Ander puts his head back on Guzman’s shoulder. He feels his throat closing, feels his eyes begin to burn. “Was what I said really bad?”  
Guzman strokes Ander’s back again, but he says nothing. Across from them, Nadia sighs.

“What you said wasn’t that bad and really, you didn’t do anything to cause this situation,” she says, her voice soft. “Don’t blame yourself.”

She says it with conviction and kindness, but Ander can’t believe her. This has nothing to do with Nadia’s words and everything to do with Omar’s behavior. Omar wouldn’t throw away ten years worth of a relationship if Ander was not to blame for _something_. So, logically, Ander must have done something to prompt this behavior. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten so upset that night. Maybe, he shouldn’t have said those things about Omar’s parents--though he’s sure he’s said worse things before. Maybe he should not have left in a fit of rage, maybe he should have looked for Omar when he came back to an empty apartment, maybe he should have gone to Omar’s parent’s house the next day, even if it meant having to face them.

Maybe Ander should have done things a lot differently but it’s a bit too late for regrets.

“I mean maybe this is a blessing,” Guzman says. His words make Ander recoil. He lifts himself completely out of Guzman’s embrace. When he looks over at Nadia, he’s just in time to see her roll her eyes.

“Yeah, that’s what you say to your broken-hearted friend, that it’s a good thing his boyfriend of ten years is ignoring him.”

“Broke up with him,” Ander says, looking down at his feet.

“Is ignoring him and making rash decisions,” Nadia says firmly. “Has not broken up with him.”

Ander raises his gaze, catching Nadia’s fierce stare. “How can you say that when he--”

“Because I know him. _You_ know him too. If only one of us could get him to _talk._ ” She mutters the last part more to herself than to Ander. “We could figure out what’s going on in his head.”

Guzman sighs audibly and Ander turns his attention back to him.

“Look,” Guzman says, his voice level, he directs his words at Ander. “Omar never wanted to get married or tell his parents about you, even after he moved in with you. I’m just saying maybe now you can find someone who can really commit to being with you.”

He says it so casually, like moving on is that easy, like he hadn’t fallen hard for Nadia and had been unable to move on from her. He says it like he’s never experienced love before.

Ander wants to punch him. Instead, he bites the inside of his lips.

Nadia laughs. “You’re wrong,” she says to Guzman. “My brother _is_ committed.”

“Is he?”

Nadia nods.

“And this is what, a phase he’s going through? Will he call it off tomorrow, next week? Before they buy the rings?”

Ander allows his body to slump on the couch, bringing his fists to his eyes and pushing them against his eyelids. He doesn’t want to hear this, doesn’t want them arguing about it when he’s in the room. But he knows that they’re both unhappy, for him, for Omar, for the whole situation.

He wishes he wasn’t here.

He wishes he could go back to the Saturday before his life went to shit.

When he opens his eyes, Nadia is sitting stiffly, clenching her hands on her knees. “I don’t know,” she says slowly, her lips barely moving. “He’s been really weird since my mom’s diagnosis. My mom wanted to talk to him alone right after we found out, and when they were done, he was off… more distant.”

“Well whatever it is he’s _going through_ that’s making him off and distant, this is hurting Ander. Omar must know that. He must have known that getting married out of nowhere would absolutely hurt his boyfriend. Yet, he chose to do it anyway.”

Ander wants to appreciate Guzman’s anger on his behalf, especially since he doesn’t have the energy to feel angry himself. Guzman’s indignation, however, exhausts him even further.

“Guzman,” he says. His voice sounds pathetic to himself, has sounded pathetic to him for the past ten days. “Stop.”

Guzman regards him. “Well someone’s gotta be angry. If it won’t be you two, I’ll do it.”

Ander shakes his head and says for the second time, “Stop.”

Nadia nods in agreement, looking meaningfully at Guzman.It’s probably that Nadia knows Guzman’s anger is doing nothing to alleviate Ander’s feeling. How Guzman is blind to that though, Ander is not sure.

“Ok then, Ander, what should I do?”

“You shouldn’t do anything,” Nadia points first at Guzman, then at herself and Ander. “ _We_ have to get my brother to talk.”

“How?” Guzman asks. It’s possible he’s decided that it’s futile to argue with both Ander and Nadia about someone they love so much. It’s more likely that he thinks that talking with Omar will show them that he’s right about Ander needing to move on.

“The engagement party,” Nadia says.

Oh great, there’s an engagement party. That makes the whole thing way more official.

“When is the engagement party?” Ander asks.

“Friday night,” Nadia says. “My parents wanted to have it after the Friday prayer.”

“Who’ll be there?”

“Family and close friends,” Nadia responds. “So we can say that you areGuzman and my close friend. And really, my parents think you’re Omar’s good friend too. I don’t think anyone would object to you being there.”

Ander’s not sure about this. He knows that at the time of their wedding, Nadia’s parents were begrudgingly approving of Guzman as a son-in-law. Before Nadia’s marriage, they never asked Guzman to spend time with them, preferring to ignore his existence since he did not qualify as family. Now that Nadia and Guzman _are_ married, they ask Guzman to their house but not as often as parents normally do. Ander himself has been to dinner at Omar’s a few times, but every time he felt slightly out of place. Those dinners were nothing special, though. This is a party, and it _is_ special, because it’s Omar’s engagement party.

Omar is getting married now.

To someone who is not Ander.

Ander has been repeating that to himself for the past day. Omar is getting married. Omar is getting married to a stranger who is a girl.

Omar’s getting married because he decided to get married. Because he asked his parents to find him a wife. Omar made this choice.

No matter how many times he repeats these statements in his head, they don’t make sense.

Ander would really like something to start making sense soon.

“Are you sure it would be ok for me to come?” He finally asks, raising his head from his hands. His eyes feel wet, though he can blame that on the fact that he has been rubbing them and definitely not on the possibility that tears have come out of them.

“Absolutely,” Nadia says. “It would be fine if you came and also you need to come. I’ve tried talking to him and he just avoids the subject. _You_ have to talk to him.”

Ander sighs. “If Omar wanted to talk to me, don’t you think he’d have reached out by now?”

Nadia shakes his head. “His head is not in the right place. Mom is super sick and you guys had a fight.”

Ander nods.

“He also has a history of making rash decisions...” Nadia continues.

She’s right and Ander knows it. He shrugs

“So,” Nadia says. “You come to the party, you talk to him, you figure out what the hell is going on.”

\---

_Moments pass in silence. Omar is avidly not looking Ander in the eyes. He also has made no effort to answer Ander’s question._

_“Omar?” Ander asks, gentle and confused. “Is it something I said?”_

_Omar shakes his head._

_“Then what?”_

_No response. A barely there shrug. Ander watches, baffled at Omar’s lack of communication, concerned about what it means about Omar’s emotional state._

_“Did you think I would be insensitive about it?” Ander asks. “I mean, I know I’m a little bit of a shithead in general about your parents, but did you really think I wouldn’t be upset that your mom is sick?”_

_“No that’s not it.” Omar’s voice rises as he says it. He’s still not looking Ander in the eyes, which troubles Ander._

_“Then what?”_

_“Nothing, Ander. Let it go!”_

_“I can’t.”_

_Omar turns, and for the first time since this argument began, he looks at Ander. His eyes are clouded over, conflicted._

_“Why not?”_

_“Because…” There’s a tinge of frustration in Ander’s voice at having to to explain this to Omar. “You’re my boyfriend and this is something huge that’s happening in your family. You’re supposed to tell me these things. I’m supposed to be here for you, to listen to you, to hold your hand through the worst of it. Do you think Nadia kept this from Guzman?”_

_Omar opens his mouth, then closes it. His gaze shifts, no longer uncertain, but blank. It scares Ander._

_“Do you?” Ander asks again._

_Omar shakes his head. “Nadia told Guzman,” he responds, “But they’re…”_

_He stops again, shuts his mouth forcefully, drops his gaze._

_Ander’s frustration rises parallel to his confusion. “They’re what, Omar?”_

_“Married.”_

_\--_

When Friday arrives Ander feels absolutely unprepared for what he and Nadia planned.

She finds him that afternoon after her prayers and together they travel to her and Omar’s parent’s house.

Nadia’s father greets them in the store, hugging Nadia tightly and hesitantly shaking Ander’s hand.

“You brought… Omar’s roomate,” He says slowly, looking at Nadia. “Did I not say this was a family and close friends party?”

Ander is very purposefully not looking at them, but he feels like Nadia has rolled her eyes. It seems like something she would do in this situation… or maybe that’s what Ander would do in this situation, if it were his father making slightly uncomfortable comments about guests.

“Ander isn’t just Omar’s roomate, _baba_ ,” Nadia says, like she’s talking to a child. “He’s also Guzman’s best friend, Omar’s best friend, _and_ he was the best man at my wedding.”

Omar’s best friend… That’s what Ander has always been to Omar’s parents. He hates having to hear those words now, today, right before Omar’s engagement party.

“Well,” Nadia’s father says. “I didn’t know that.”

“Of course you did. Why would Omar live with Ander if he didn’t love him, _baba_?” Nadia says it so casually, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, but Ander feels a stab in his heart as he hears it.

Nadia’s father, seemingly oblivious to Ander’s inner turmoil, chuckles. “You’re right.” To Ander he says “welcome,” with a big smile.

Ander tries to return the smile. “Thanks for having me.”

“Where’s Omar?” Nadia asks her father. She’s looking around the shop as if Omar is hiding behind one of the stacks.

“Upstairs with your mother,” Nadia’s father says. “Waiting for the guests to arrive, you guys are early. Where’s Guzman?”

Nadia grabs Ander’s arm and starts leading him upstairs. “He’ll be here soon. See you inside.”

Upstairs, they only find Nadia’s mother. She looks pale, skinny, frail. Looking at her, Ander remembers with a pang that Omar’s family is not certain whether or not she’ll survive her illness.

Despite her physical state, Nadia’s mother stands to greet them, and she smiles at Ander. “It’s so good to see you,” she says to him, which is much more than Nadia’s father offered. “I told Omar we should invite you, but he said you were busy tonight.”

Ander tries very hard not let his emotions show on his face. From the look that Nadia gives him, he probably failed.

“Yeah,” he says awkwardly. “I was going to have dinner with my parents but they cancelled.”

“Oh well, a blessing in disguise,” Nadia says. “Where is Omar?”

Nadia’s mother tilts her head toward a closed door. “He’s getting ready in your old bedroom,” she says and sits down again, sighing. The physical act of standing must have been exhausting for her. Pity tugs at Ander’s heart, but the sorrow at her diminished health is temporary. He began fighting with Omar because of his hiding her illness, and now, due to that fight, he’s here trying to talk to Omar about his impending wedding.

Ander’s heart beats rapidly in anticipation.

“We’ll go say ‘hi’ then,” Nadia says. She grabs Ander’s arm again and drags him to the door, but when she tries to open it, she finds that it is locked. Nadia knocks, there’s no answer.

“Omar,” she says, loud enough to get through the wooden door, but quiet enough that their mother won’t hear. “It’s Nadia, open the door.”

“I’m busy.”

Hearing Omar’s voice for the first time after so many days, even though it’s muffled, makes Ander goes weak at the knees. He leans against the wall, closing his eyes.

“Omar, let me in,” Nadia hisses. “We need to talk.”

“We really do not,” comes the answer.

“Omar!”

“Go away, Nadia!”

Ander opens his eyes just in time to see Nadia close her own in frustration. When she opens them, she catches Ander’s gaze and shakes her head.

“Fine,” she says to the door. “You’re gonna have to come out of there some time!”

They leave the door and sit down with Omar’s mother. She makes conversation with both of them, but despite her warmth and friendliness and Nadia’s presence, Ander feels uneasy. He feels like an outsider, like he doesn’t belong in that room with Nadia and her mom. This gathering is not meant for him, and although Nadia has done a good job of convincing her family that he is a close friend, Ander doesn’t think he should be there.

He stands up as the first guests begin to arrive, unable to face the strangers; Guzman isn’t here yet, and being introduced as Omar’s friend and roommate to Omar’s future wife and her family is a bit too much to handle with just Nadia there for support. It would probably be too much to handle if Guzman was there too.

He hides in the guest room.

It’s all... too much to handle, period.

Ander lays down on the bed, staring distractedly at the ceiling. He can hear the faint voices of the new guests, of Nadia and Omar’s parents. He can’t hear Omar’s voice yet, which doesn’t mean he hasn’t come out of hiding, just that he isn’t talking.

Ander sighs.

At some point during the night, he needs to find Omar and talk to him. They need to talk. They’ve needed to talk for weeks now, but Omar has shown no desire to reach out to Ander, and after hearing about the wedding, Ander was unsure whether he should reach out to Omar.

He’s still unsure.

But he can’t let this thing happen without at least trying, even though he feels like Omar’s decision to get married after they fought is a clear enough signal.

Nadia thinks he should do this though. And really, Ander can’t not try…

He lays there as the voices in the living room get louder, trying to force his body up. His heart beats rapidly in his chest every time he attempts it, and he continues putting it off.

Just… at some point tonight.

That decision is taken away from him, however, the moment he hears the sound of the door opening and closing.

When Ander catches Omar’s eyes, he feels like the air has been sucked out of his lungs. Omar stands by the door, his hand resting on the handle as if he is too shocked to remove it. He stares at Ander as though he’s seen a ghost, and Ander feels bad for surprising him like this, for appearing out of nowhere when Omar least expected it. But a moment later, that pity disappears. This is Omar’s engagement party, the engagement party he’s having because he’s marrying someone who is not Ander, and Ander had been hiding here because that fact was a bit too much for him to handle.

They stare at each other silently until Ander can’t handle it anymore. He coughs, standing.

He came here tonight to talk to Omar. He has to do it. He _will_ do it.

“Hi,” he says and then bites his lips.

“What are you doing here?” Omar is looking down at his shiny black shoes as if they’re the most interesting thing in the world. His voice is off, softer, and there are dark circles under his eyes. From the downward tilt of his chin and the droop of his shoulder, Ander can tell that he’s miserable.

His voice breaks Ander out of his shock. He breathes out, ready to speak. “I’m here for the party,” Ander says. “The engagement party... As a close friend.”

“Um,” Omar says, “Did you come with Nadia?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Omar says, and then is silent.

They’re both silent, Ander staring at Omar, Omar staring at his shoes. Ander thinks that this is probably the perfect time to ask Omar what the fuck is going on, but he can’t. He realizes, with sudden clarity, why he has not reached out to Omar in so long.

He’s afraid.

Afraid of what Omar will say, afraid that if pressed Omar will reveal something Ander doesn’t want to hear.

Like maybe he no longer loves Ander.

Maybe their relationship is really over, not because of some weird shit that Omar is going through, but because for Omar, the love that kept them going for so long no longer exists.

Ander knows that he came here tonight to talk to Omar, but he doesn’t think he can handle no longer being loved by him.

He can’t ask.

No matter how badly he wants to.

“Are--” Omar begins, raising his head. He glances at Ander briefly, then away at a wall. He swallows. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

Ander laughs, surprised. Feelings flash through him, anger, frustration, misery. He swallows down bile and responds. “Am I...? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Omar shrugs, the small shrug he gives when he’s uncertain or insecure, but wants to appear nonchalant. Ander has seen it countless times, sometimes directed at himself. But as he watches it now, he feels only confusion.

“I don’t know,” Omar says. “Why are you here if you’re not enjoying yourself?”

“Well, why are you here if you’re not enjoying yourself?” Ander turns the question around, because why beat around the bush.

“You don’t know that I’m not enjoying myself,” Omar responds.

Ander tilts his head, staring at Omar. He can’t believe Omar thinks that Ander cannot tell when he’s miserable after ten years. He waits silently. 

Omar watches him, and sighs. “My mom,” He says finally. “She’s sick.”

“So?” Ander takes a step closer towards him. “That’s not really a reason to get married to a stranger though, is it?”

“I mean,” Omar says, he watches as Ander approaches him, eyebrows knitted, mouth closed in a downward slope. He breathes a few times, in and out, before he speaks.“What do you want me to do?”

“Not marry a stranger?” Ander says. _A stranger,_ he adds in his head, _someone who is not me._ “Why are you doing this?”

Omar shakes his head. “You wouldn’t get it,” he says after a moment.

“Try me,” Ander says, stepping closer again. He’s close enough to touch now and reaches to stroke Omar’s cheek with his hand. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

His words or his touch or something have an immediate effect on Omar. His face closes off and he steps back, pressing himself against the door.

Ander can almost see the conversation, like a creature struggling to swim and then giving up, swallowed by water. “Omar, please,” he says.

Omar closes his eyes.

“Have you met Maryam?” He says when he reopens them.

Ander steps back, resisting the urge to scream. No, of fucking course he has not. He has purposefully avoided the bride-to-be, her family and friends, by shutting himself away in this room. Ander left before Nadia and Omar’s parents had a chance to introduce him to any of the guests. He’s not sure how he would react if he saw Maryam, or talked to her, or was introduced to her. Possibly he might start crying, possibly he might yell.

He doesn’t want to risk it.

“No.”

“Do you want to?” Omar asks, and Ander suddenly cannot stand to be near him. He wants to take the two steps separating them and pull Omar to himself. He wants to hug him, kiss him. It’s been too long, they haven’t spent this long without speaking for years. He wants to hold Omar and never let go, and he wants to run. Wants to run out of this room, out of this house, out of this city. He wants to go home, but home is standing right in front of him, and asking if Ander wants to meet his fiance.

“No,” Ander responds. “Why would you think that I wanted to?”

“Well--” Omar begins and then stops. “If you don’t…”

“I don’t.” Ander’s voice comes out a lot louder than he meant it to. He just wants to emphasize his unwillingness to meet this woman.

Omar’s eyes go wide. “Ander,” he says. “I can’t…”

“You can’t what?” Ander asks.

Omar shakes his head. “I can’t,” he repeats. “I don’t know how to do _this_.”

And that’s not something Ander wants to hear. He absolutely cannot hear what ‘this’ is, and he won’t stay here to hear it. “Excuse me, I have to go.”

“Wait.” His hand raises as if to stop Ander.

Ander pushes Omar’s hand away, opens the door, and keeps walking until he’s out of Omar’s parents’ shop. He wants to turn around so badly, to see if Omar is looking after him. He wants Omar to call after him again, stop him more forcefully, show everyone that he loves Ander more than this bullshit.

But as he walks out of the house, out to the street, no one follows him.

And really, Ander’s not surprised, he knew this would happen.

He doesn’t go home, not to his apartment that still has all of his and Omar’s stuff in it. Not where he can see the evidence of the past ten years of their life. Ander hasn’t been able to spend time at home for days now, ever since he learned about the engagement.

He can’t go back to the apartment, so he goes to his parents’ house instead.

It’sonly when he’s lying down in his childhood bed, holding his pillow to his chest, that he allows himself to cry.

\---

 _It takes a moment for Ander to comprehend the meaning behind Omar’s words. When it finally hits him, that_ “they’re married” _implies a_ “we’re not,” _that Omar has just now undervalued the relationship they’ve been nurturing for the past ten years, he recoils._

_He tries to come up with a response, something, anything to counter what Omar has just said, but the only thing that leaves his mouth is, “Oh.”_

_Omar looks stricken as well, possibly he didn’t mean to say what he did._

_Possibly._

_“I didn’t realize that marriage elevated their relationship so much above ours,” Ander finally says. “If I had known, I would have… done something about it.”_

_Omar looks at Ander, then away. His eyes are wide, they won’t settle on anything._

_“Oh wait,” Ander says. His initial shock is slowly turning into anger. Anger at Omar for hiding his mother’s illness from him. Anger at Omar for saying he doesn’t need to know about the illness because they’re not married._

_Just._

_Anger at Omar._

_“Wait,” Ander says again. “I did try to do something about it, didn’t I? How long ago was it, Omar? It feels like decades.”_

_Usually, when Ander is angry, he yells. Right now, however, his voice is not rising, it’s lowering. That’s new._

_“Oh yeah,” Ander continues. “It was almost a decade ago, wasn’t it, when I said we should get married. Was it almost a decade ago? Am I remembering right?”_

_“Ander…”_

_Ander laughs. “Am I?”_

_“Ander don’t do this right now.”_

_“Well,” Ander says. “If you don’t want to answer me that’s fine. I remember very well. And I remember you saying that we didn’t need to get married because we had nothing to prove. I remember you saying getting married was really something people do when they’re straight and they want to have kids and all that shit, and we didn’t need that. Isn’t that what you said? That we knew how much we loved each other, no one else needed to know?”_

_Omar is no longer looking even in Ander’s direction._

_“Right?” Ander repeats._

_Silence._

_“Isn’t that what you said Omar? Or do you not remember?”_

_Omar sighs. “I fucking remember,” he says softly. “I remember, ok?”_

_Ander feels exhausted. “Well I’m sorry for assuming you didn’t after you implied that your sister’s marriage was more valid than our relationship.”_

_“I…” Omar says, “I didn’t mean…”_

_“You didn’t mean it? Really?”_

_“I didn’t mean to imply that her relationship was more valid.”_

_“Oh ok I’m glad you didn’t_ mean _to imply it,” Ander responds. “Because that’s what it sounded like.”_

_“I mean,” Omar says. “It’s more valid to my parents…”_

_Ander rolls his eyes. “You mean your parents, who don’t even know that we are together. Those parents?”_

_“Yes,” Omar says, barely opening his mouth._

_“The parents who tried to marry you off at sixteen? Who tried to pull your sister out of a spectacular school without listening to what she wanted?”_

_“Ander,” Omar says, carefully._

_Ander should stop. But he’s tired and angry and confused and he doesn’t know how to._

_“Those same parents that you said you didn’t give a shit about, and wanted to escape. The parents you don’t trust enough to tell about me.”_

_“Yes,” Omar says, his voice rising._

_“Who gives a shit what they value?” Ander says. “Who gives a shit what they want, Omar? Do you?”_

_Omar doesn’t say anything._

_“Do you?”  
Nothing. _

_“You know what?” Ander says, standing. “Fuck this.”_

_“What? Where are you going?” Omar stands too, and he reaches his hand toward Ander. Ander pushes it away._

_“Away from you,” he says, emphasizing every word. He hears Omar calling after him as he slams the door to their apartment._

_He’s too angry to care._

_When he returns, Omar is gone._

_\---_

Ander wakes up the next morning to his phone ringing.

“What the fuck, Ander!” Ander checks his phone, it says the time is 7:59 AM. It’s way too early for Nadia to be yelling at him so loudly.

“Fuck,” Ander says softly, rubbing his eyes.

“Fuck is correct,” comes Nadia’s voice. “Did you even talk to him before you left?”

“I… talked to him…” he says.

“ _About the wedding?”_

Ander sighs. He sits up, looking around his old bedroom. His mom had kept it for him, even when he had moved out. Now, even though he’s got a job, even though he can afford living alone, he wants to move back.

“Kind of.”

“Ander!” Nadia says. “I thought the plan was to get him back.”

Ander drops his head into one hand. “What if he doesn’t want to be taken back back, Nadia? We keep assuming that he doesn’t want to get married but… what if we’re wrong?”

He hears Nadia sighing. “Ander, my brother knows who he is and he knows that he cannot marry this fiance my parents have found for him; that would be under normal circumstances, as in if he didn’t have a long term and committed relationship with a loving and devoted boyfriend. That’s you by the way, if you were _unsure_ about that as well. There is no way that he would do this if something wasn’t going on.”

“Ok.”

“Talk to him, Ander,” Nadia says. “Don’t make both yourself and Omar miserable.”

Ander really wishes he could. “I’ll try.”

“Call him.”

“Ok.”

\--

_Omar doesn’t return that night._

_Ander calls him several times, sends him texts, leaves him voicemails, but there is no response._

_He goes to work feeling shitty, and leaves halfway through the day because he can't emotionally handle the stress._

_He comes home to an empty apartment and feels a sudden sadness that brings tears to his eyes._

_He calls Omar again._

_Still no answer._

_He decides that he cannot spend the night alone again. That night, when he’s lying down on a bed in Guzman and Nadia’s guestroom, Ander realizes that he left his phone charger at home. He forgets about the charger when Guzman comes in, asking if he’s ok. The phone dies while he is recounting to Guzman, for the second time, what had happened the previous night._

_When he returns home the next day, the second day after his fight with Omar, there is no sign of his boyfriend. Ander finds his phone charger, but turning it on shows that there have been no new texts from Omar._

_Ander sighs, puts on clean clothes and goes to work._

_That night he returns to Guzman’s and Nadia’s house, because he still can’t think of his empty bed without feeling his throat tighten._

_He spends night after night in Guzman’s guest bedroom, waiting for Omar to call him._

_A week after his fight with Omar, Nadia tells Ander about Omar’s impending marriage._

_\--_

Ander doesn’t call.

He means to, but he keeps putting it off. The only reason he finally does call is because Nadia tells him that Omar and his fiance are getting the paperwork ready to sign in front of an _imam_ the next day.

“So soon?” Ander asks, feeling empty.

Nadia nods. “It’s very important for my mom to see Omar married. Ander, listen. She is _so_ happy, and every time Omar talks to her, she brings up the wedding and he looks even more miserable. I think the driving force behind the quickness is her illness.”

She reiterates that Ander needs to call Omar _that_ night before hanging up.

Ander watches his phone for a long time before making the call.

Omar picks up the phone on the first ring.

“Listen to me, and don’t interrupt because I think I have only one emotionally draining confession in me tonight,” Ander says after Omar’s _hello._ There’s a sharp intake, but Omar doesn’t say anything. Ander continues, “I don’t know what happened and what I did to make you _so_ angry. I don’t know why you decided to get married this way, without talking to me, without letting me know _anything._ And look, if this whole thing is because of something I did or said, I’m sorry. I understand that I was an asshole about your parents, especially when your mom is so sick. I understand if you don’t love me anymore. I understand, of course I do, people fall out of love all the time.” Ander pauses, overwhelmed by the words coming out of his mouth, unsure whether they’re actually true.

On the other side, he can hear Omar’s harsh breaths. As Ander lays there, silently, attempting to force more words out of his mouth, he can hear Omar attempting to speak. Yet, he doesn’t, and Ander finally gathers his thoughts and continues. “I just wanted to tell you, if you were not sure about it, that I love you. I love you with all my heart. I have since I was seventeen and I probably always will, and if getting married to some random person is going to make you happier than I can, then I will try to understand and I will try to accept it. Just don’t think that I’m happy about it, and don't think that I don’t love you. Because I love you _so much._ ”

In the silence that follows, Ander can hear Omar breathing.

“You can speak now,” Ander says after what feels like hours of silence.

There’s a sigh at the other end of the line, and movement. “I…” Omar begins, then stops.“Where were you?” he asks quietly, after a few seconds. “The night after we fought?”  
“At Guzman’s. I couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping in that bed without you again,” Ander answers, though his throat feels like it’s closing.

“You weren’t mad?” Omar asks, voice hoarse. “About what I’d said and what I’d done?”

“No.” Ander responds. “I wasn’t mad, I just couldn’t stay there without you. I haven’t been able to, since you left.”

“Oh.” Omar’s voice is faint. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Of course I do,” Ander says. He needs to force the words out, because they keep getting stuck in his throat. “I love you. I miss you. I wish you were here with me.”

“I do too.” Omar says softly, “And…” He stops. There’s silence that stretches too long, and Ander wonders what is it that’s giving Omar so much trouble to say.

“Omar?” Ander asks.

No response. Ander stays silent, waiting, listening. When it’s apparent that Omar won’t be saying anything else, Ander hangs up. There are tears trickling slowly out of his eyes.

Omar doesn’t call him back, which is probably for the best. Ander’s not sure he can find his voice at the moment, even if he wants to.

The next morning, at 8:45, Nadia texts him the words “my parents’ house at 11:30,” and adds, a minute later, “I saw my brother crying last night.”

Ander stares at his phone for a moment, then texts back, “What?”

Nadia responds almost immediately. “They’re going to sign the marriage papers in front of an _imam_ at 11:30 at my parents house. Come before that!”

Ander responds that he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do.

“Whatever you said to Omar, it made him cry. So you know, I think your fear that he doesn’t want to be with you is unfounded,” the next text reads. “Please stop acting stupid, I know you’re not. Come fix this mess, my brother clearly wants you to.”

Ander struggles with her words. He wants Nadia to be correct in her assertion, but he knows that despite what he said to Omar, or what his response may have been after Ander hung up, Omar did not call back, nor has he called off the wedding.

Still, Nadia’s words “please stop acting stupid” keep ringing in his head. She’s right, this whole mess happened because both Omar and Ander were acting stupid. Ander allowed anger then fear to get the better of him, and now the situation has gotten out of control and Omar is getting married. The least Ander can do is try to talk to Omar before the legal shit happens. Where Omar is concerned, right now, Ander has nothing to lose.

He leaves his house repeating Nadia’s words in his head.

He reaches Omar’s parents’ house at ten and stands in front of the building, staring through the glass windows to the empty store unsure of what to do next.

Now that he’s here, Ander doesn’t think he can actually go inside.

What will happen if he goes inside and asks for Omar? Omar’s parents are most likely going to turn him away, they’ll say that now is not the time to talk, that Omar is about to get married and whatever Ander has to say can most definitely wait until the ceremony is over, can’t it?

They won’t know the significance of Ander’s presence at their house, because in the ten years of their relationship, neither he, nor Omar had the courage to tell Omar’s parents about it. And maybe they both sugar coated it by saying that they didn’t need to tell Omar’s parents, that his parents knowing didn’t change anything. But the fact is that they were both afraid of what Omar’s parents would say, how they would react.

Omar’s reaction to his mother’s illness and Nadia’s hunch that their mother’s happiness was fueling these fast wedding plans, showed that both Ander and Omar had been lying to themselves about the influence of Omar’s parents’ thoughts. Ander reasons that he shouldn’t be too surprised by this, in the end, Omar’s bond with his parents may have been weak, but it had not been broken.

So now, to try to salvage his relationship, Ander needs to face Omar’s family and tell them that what he needs to say to Omar is more important than the wedding they’ve been preparing. Quite possibly Ander will have to do it in front of the fiance’s family as well, who are complete strangers to him.

Thinking of the fiance’s family and their reaction on top of Omar’s family’s reaction, Ander realizes that he won’t be able to do this alone, not after weeks of loneliness and misery.

He walks across the street and leans against the wall. He’s here, he has to do _something._ “Let’s talk. I’m outside,” he texts Omar, hoping that Omar has his phone with him, and waits for a reply.

There is no reply, but several minutes later, the door to the store opens and Omar walks out.

He looks tired. His eyes are red and his brows are knitted together. When he steps outside, he looks around, first left, then right. Then he checks his phone. He finally looks up and spots Ander, and as his eyes focus on Ander, he smiles slightly and crosses the street.

Ander hates how sad Omar looks, that he was so frazzled it took him several moments to spot Ander across the street. He wants to do something, anything to alleviate that sadness.

“I’m sorry,” He says when Omar is close enough to hear it. It’s the only thing he can think of saying after so long without any communication.“I’m sorry,” he says again, reaching out for Omar.

Omar grabs his hands and pulls Ander towards himself, dragging Ander’s hand behind his own neck and kissing him.

Ander kisses back, feeling it vibrate through his body. He’s seized by a sudden desperation, his hands grab at the back of Omar’s head and he opens his mouth, kissing Omar harder. He wants to feel Omar all around him, to replace the loneliness that’s been plaguing him for weeks.

When Omar breaks away, Ander kisses his cheek, his ear, his neck. Omar grabs Ander’s face to stop him and brings their foreheads together.

“Sorry,” Ander mumbles.

“Stop saying you’re sorry, Ander,” Omar whispers, and brushes his lips softly against Ander’s. “God, you didn’t even do anything. _I’m_ sorry.”

“Ok,” Ander responds. “Please don’t get married.”

“I’m not going to.” Omar turns his head to glance toward his parents’ store. “I don’t think I could have done it, even if you hadn’t shown up.”

“Good,” Ander says. He kisses Omar again because he can’t not and it’s been too long and because he needs to do it.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Omar says after a moment, “I wanted to call you, I was about to call you, but then I chickened out, and you’re here now. Thank you for being here now.”

Ander pulls Omar into his arms and holds him tightly. “I was so scared of showing up and having to watch you get married..”

“I’m glad you showed up though,” Omar repeats, then, “I’m sorry.”

“Love you,” Ander says into Omar’s shoulder.

“I love you too,” Omar says and he and kisses Ander again, like the first time, deep and desperate. “I love you too,” he repeats when he breaks away. “I’m sorry.”

God, it physically hurts Ander to hear it.

Ander kisses him back and nods. “Stop saying that you’re sorry.”

Omar takes Ander’s face into his hands again. “I am sorry though, I did a lot of stupid things.”

“So did I,” Ander responds. “But you told me to stop apologizing.”

“We should talk,” Omar says. He looks towards his parents’ house again. “God, my parents will be so angry once they realize I’m not going to go through with this wedding. The scandal it will cause…”

Ander watches him for a moment. “Do you need to go inside and let them know that you won’t be going through with it?”

Omar shakes his head. “No I don’t want to deal with them before we talk about this mess.”

“Ok, then,” Ander says. “Let’s go home.”

\--

Back at the apartment, they don’t talk.

They sit on the couch, holding each other, Ander’s head on Omar’s shoulder. Occasionally, Omar squeezes Ander’s hand with his own, or Ander presses his face more firmly into Omar’s neck. They need to talk, but Ander cannot bring himself to break the aura that they’ve constructed, sitting on that couch.

Then finally, when he hears Omar’s phone vibrating, Ander decides that they really do need to talk.

“Are you going to answer that?” he asks Omar.

Omar shakes his head, taking his phone out of his pocket, and ending the call. Now that the silence is broken, Ander can talk.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. He hopes that beginning by repeating the apology he’s been holding onto for weeks will make the conversation easier.“I shouldn’t have insulted your parents, I shouldn’t have just left. I should have called you the moment Nadia told me about this stupid wedding.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Omar responds. His tone is comfortable, whatever he’d been holding on to for the past few weeks, whatever had been bothering him is no longer there. “It wasn’t even your fault. I--” His phone begins vibrating again, he ends the call.

Ander watches him do it.

“You decided to get married,” Ander says it gently, even though his instinct is to yell it out. He says it gently because despite this debacle, despite the wedding and the engagement party, Omar is here.

“Yeah, I decided to get married,” Omar responds after a moment. His phone begins vibrating _again_. Omar turns off his phone.

“Yeah, so…?” Ander says. “We had a fight. Not even a bad fight, though to be fair, I did storm out like a teenager. But was that enough to convince you that we were broken up, never getting back together, and that you should get married immediately?”

Omar shakes his head. He opens his mouth several times, but nothing comes out. He shakes his head again. “I decided to get married, but it wasn’t because we fought, it was because you weren’t home...” Omar finally says; a statement that makes no sense to Ander. “And you didn’t answer when I called--”

“Yeah, but I called you five million times afterwards,” Ander says. “And you never responded. And ok, the fact that I wasn’t home and didn’t answer my phone is still not enough reason to go to your parents’, tell them you want to get married, and have them choose a wife for you like we live in medieval times.”

“I didn’t respond to your calls because you didn’t come home the night after we fought and every time I called you it went to voicemail.”

“My phone died because I forgot my charger! It wasn’t because I didn’t want to talk to you...”

“Well I didn’t know that your phone was dead… and I thought…” Omar stops, he looks simultaneously flustered and sheepish. It warms Ander’s heart.

“You thought what?” Ander says, gently stroking Omar’s cheek. He wants so badly to feel giddy and light, to move past this, but they are not getting to the issue, despite how much they’ve already said. The logic of the situation isn’t revealing itself. Omar shouldn’t have just gone from fighting to getting married to a lady his parents picked out for him. There’s a step in there that Ander is missing, and for some reason, neither of them can get to this step. Ander wants to feel happiness--and he is feeling some sort of happiness for the first time in days, weeks, just because Omar is here--but the anxiety of what happened won’t let him truly feel at ease. He needs to know what Omar thought then, what led him to make the decisions that he made, so that it may never happen again.

“You were mad that I hadn’t wanted to get married before, and that I was saying Nadia’s relationship mattered more because she was married.” Omar shrugs. “You were mad because you thought I was hiding you, and hiding our relationship. I thought maybe you went out to find yourself someone who wouldn’t hide you from their parents.”

This is not what Ander was expecting to hear. He is so surprised that he begins laughing. “I’m sorry?”

“Ander,” Omar says. “No one wants to be with someone who’s still in the closet.”

“We’ve been together for ten years!”

“Yeah,” Omar responds. “And yet here I am, still in the closet.”

Ander rolls his eyes. “You are not _still_ in the closet.”

“I am to my parents,” Omar says. “It’s so hard to hide something so important from them. We’ve been together for so long, but the biggest reason this whole mess happened was because I haven’t told my parents about me and I haven’t told them about you. You know what my mom said to me when after we found out how sick she was? She said she wanted to see me married to a nice Muslim girl before she died. She said she was happy that Nadia was married, but _she_ hadn't married a nice Muslim boy, and it would be so nice to see me married before God took her away. And you know what I did?”

“You came home and refused to share with me that she was sick or what she had said to you because you’re still repressed?”

Omar pushes gently at Ander’s shoulder, but there’s a slight smile on his lips. The smile disappears before he speaks again. “No. I mean yes, but that’s not what I meant. She asked me if I would consider meeting some eligible girls, and instead of saying ‘no mom, I’m already in a monogamous and committed relationship,’ I told her _maybe.”_

Ander chuckles. “Is that why you didn’t tell me about her illness?”

Omar nods. “I wasn’t going to do it, but I didn’t know _what_ to say to her. And I didn’t want to tell you because I didn't want to hide what she asked for from you. But I also didn’t want to tell you what she asked for, because I didn’t want to tell you how I responded.”

“So you came home and I pushed you until I snapped,” Ander says gently. “I’m sorry you were put in that situation.”

Omar nods. Then, “And then I left because you were angry and I felt responsible, and then the next night you didn’t come home and you know, I was feeling very defeated at that time.”

“A simple text to your sister would have revealed that I was moping in their spare room,” Ander says. “I’m not gonna be mad at you for thinking I’d try to move on that fast, because a lot of shit was happening, but really? Ten years, Omar!”

Omar squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

Ander kisses Omar’s cheek, “I love you,” he says. Omar turns his head and kisses Ander’s lips softly.

“Why?”

Ander shrugs. “Do you want a joke answer or a real answer?” he asks, smiling.

Omar shrugs, which means that he wants a real answer.

“Ok,” Ander says. “To be honest, I don’t know. I remember being intrigued when I first saw you, but then you ran away. I remember being shocked and curious and then of course I thought you were hot,” Ander pauses, lightly tapping his forehead against Omar’s. “And then we got along didn’t we? I was waiting for your messages, I remember feeling so happy every time I saw you. I remember thinking you were brave and that your situation was so shitty.”

Omar bites his lip. “Brave?”

“Yeah,” Ander replies. “And I could talk to you about shit when we were together. God I think that was enough for me to fall in love.”

Omar smiles. “Yeah I think so too.”

Ander smiles too and kisses the top of Omar’s nose. “And you?”

“I thought, ‘wow he’s hot,’ and never looked back,” Omar responds.

Ander pushes him away. “Shithead.”

Omar allows himself to be pushed, then grabs Ander’s arms and drags himself back, climbing into Ander’s lap. “Love you too,” he says softly, his nose touching Ander’s. “So much.”

Ander kisses him, because there’s nothing else to do. He puts everything that he feels into the kiss: the anxiety that was plaguing him, the fear that Omar would leave again, the weeks of solitude and sorrow. He kisses with desperation, and is kissed in return with desperation.

They might have stayed on that couch all day, kissing and talking, if Ander’s phone had not began to vibrate.

By the time he takes his phone out of his pocket, the call from Nadia has ended. Ander shows it to Omar, who shrugs. He leans forward in Ander’s arms, setting against Ander’s side. A moment later, while Ander is deciding whether to call back or not, he gets a text from Nadia. “Please tell me my brother is with you,” Ander reads out loud. “He disappeared over an hour ago and now his phone is off.”

Ander glances at Omar, questioning.

“Just tell her I’m with you.”

Ander does.

“Thank you!” is the response.

“I don’t think that Nadia should be left alone to deal with all the angry people we’ve left behind,” Ander says after he’s read Nadia’s response out loud.

“Yeah,” Omar says. “That’s not fair to her.”

“So what do we do now?” Ander asks.

Omar takes a deep breath, and when he speaks, he looks determined. “Now we go and reintroduce you to my parents.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _No Me Doy Por Vencido_ by Luis Fonsi
> 
> \--
> 
> So a couple of weeks ago I listened to _El Perdón_ by Nicky Jam ft. Enrique Iglesias for the very first time, which is wild since this song has been out for three years and I usually am very prompt in listening to Enrique Iglesias when he's involved in making music. But anyways after my 20th run through the song I was like you know what would be nice? If I wrote an extremely angsty Elite fic inspired by the lyrics.
> 
> And a few weeks later here we are. I hope you guys enjoyed this monster.  
>    
> I couldn't find a good line from _El Perdón_ to make the title so we had to consult our good friend Luis Fonsi. 
> 
>  Find me on [tumblr](http://waroftheposes.tumblr.com).


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